Sun, Apr 19, 2009

The banking collapse and the economic meltdown have prompted many Americans to turn to the federal government as indispensable savior, telling Congress and the president: We hope you can fix it; we want you to do whatever is necessary to fix it; and we don't care what it costs.

People who don’t know much about freedom of the press (or don’t care much about it) often say that the government has a right to regulate the content of broadcast media because "the public owns the airways."

Our federal government is almost recession-proof. Unfortunately.
While private companies across the country are letting workers go, Uncle Sam -- fueled by February’s massive “stimulus” bill -- plans to add tens of thousands of employees.

There has been a lot of outrage over the Department of Homeland Security's leaked summary report on "Rightwing Extremism," but by far its most odious aspects are its implications that military veterans are fertile targets for radical, violent groups and that right-wingers are inclined toward racism.

When thousands of people in all 50 states assemble to protest government policy, you might suppose that this is news. Not according to the coverage on the front pages of the Washington Post, New York Times, or the Wall Street Journal.

After reading and rereading the surreal Department of Homeland Security intel report on "right-wing extremism" that clearly designates conservative political dissent as part of the threat, I finally figured out why it all seems so familiar.

I have always contended that anybody who seeks the presidency is an egomaniac, every bit as certifiably crackers as those poor souls wandering around the grounds of the asylum insisting they’re Napoleon.

Franklin Roosevelt gave us the New Deal. John Kennedy gave us the New Frontier. In a major domestic policy address at Georgetown University this week, Barack Obama promised -- eight times -- a "New Foundation."

In coverage of the hundreds of “tea parties” held April 15 to protest spending and taxation in America, many national reports not only grossly underestimated the real numbers of those present at such rallies, they also managed to include a Gallup Poll that defeated the very point they were trying to make.

Thu, Apr 16, 2009

Words are not the only things that enable political rhetoric to magically transform reality. Numbers can be used just as creatively-- and many voters are even more gullible about statistics than they are about words, apparently because statistics seem more objective.

Based solely on a far-Left agenda that includes a plan to control worldwide energy production, the climate change hysteria movement has jumped the shark. Now our leaders need to start asking tough questions of Al Gore, the United Nations IPCC and other alarmists.

President Obama, with reporters during his first flight aboard Air Force One -- dressed in a flight jacket bearing his name and the presidential seal: "I've got my spiffy jacket, so I thought I'd come and show it off. What do you think about this spiffy ride?"

Rep. Jesse L. Jackson Jr., Illinois Democrat, is collecting a series of legal bills months after it was disclosed he was "Senate Candidate No. 5" in the arrest documents filed against former Illinois Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich.

The New Deal, launched almost 80 years ago, represented a giant leap toward collectivism. But only in the last few weeks, as a result of President Barack Obama's New Deal Reloaded, have some 20 states rediscovered the Constitution and the 10th Amendment.

President Barack Obama recently rolled out a curious foreign policy. This policy leaves American troops carrying all the risks in overseas combat, while lowering our defenses at the same time dangerous regimes are developing their means of mass destruction.

Another Democratic president has shattered precedent. Democratic politicians take great pride in shattering American precedents, and they do so with such regularity that it is surprising there are any precedents left to shatter, except, I guess, for the precedents Democrats establish on the ruins of earlier precedents.

Offshore oil and natural gas production will devastate our beaches, wreak havoc on tourism, and destroy sensitive ecosystems. At least, that’s the age-old drone of opponents to increasing offshore energy production here at home.

On any American street, or in any airport or mall, you see the same sad tableau: A 10-year-old boy is walking with his father, whose development was evidently arrested when he was that age, judging by his clothes.

When the Department of Homeland Security releases an assessment that opines that the "historical election of an African American president and prospect of policy changes are providing to be a driving force for right-wing extremist recruitment and radicalization," it makes me worry about the brains in DHS's Office of Intelligence and Analysis.

In on of those really sad cases of unintentional, but awful, timing the Boston Tea Party Ships and Museum in, well, Boston, is closed for remodeling and isn't scheduled to reopen until the summer of 2010.

Our view of Pakistan's role in the war in Afghanistan has undergone an ominous but necessary series of shifts. At the outset of the war, in October 2001, Pakistan correctly was seen as a necessary ally.

Religion has often unintentionally enabled scientific skepticism. The faithful will issue a challenge to science: Ha, you can't explain the development of life, or the moral sense, or the nearly universal persistence of religion.

Perry’s statement is a clarion call for more local sovereignty, for less command-and-control from above. But is it too late for states to regain their status in the great struggle for policymaking power implemented by the Constitution?

American taxpayers not only helped fund Iran's nuclear program over the past decade, according to a recent report by the Government Accountability Office, but the State Department now "strongly opposes" diminishing the flow of U.S. money to the international agency that funneled the aid to Iran because the department fears -- among other things -- that doing so would "anger states in the developing world."

Barack Obama's decision to allow unlimited travel by Cuban-Americans to visit family members in Cuba is a smart, long-overdue step aimed at steering that country toward democracy in the post-Castro era.

Tue, Apr 14, 2009

The new improvements at OpenSecrets.org will allow investigative journalists, analysts, and citizen watchdogs to access information in better ways, which could lead to much greater transparency in government funding and political donations.

Amid concern that younger generations are getting the "news" from cable TV comedy shows, NASA has chosen Comedy Central's "The Colbert Report" to announce tonight the name of the space agency's newest module for the International Space Station.

When the average person thinks "evil," he thinks of a cruelly-featured, sneering, bestial man wickedly twirling his mustache as he draws perverse delight from inflicting misery on his fellow human beings.

China is the largest foreign holder of U.S. government bonds. But, instead of buying more of those bonds as our skyrocketing national debt leads to more bonds being issued, China has been selling some of its U.S. government bonds this year.

Teatime, anyone? I hope you've joined one of the thousands of TEA (Taxed Enough Already) parties or FairTax rallies, which are happening across the country April 15 to protest outrageous government spending.

President Barack Obama's recent appointment of Harry Knox to his Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships adds another redundant nail to the coffin of the irresponsible myth that he is a bipartisan unifier.

When I condemned President Barack Obama's deep bow to Saudi King Abdullah, I heard from many readers about President George W. Bush's hand-holding with the same personage. "What's the difference?" demanded one reader.

ince the April defeats for traditional marriage in the Iowa Supreme Court, the Vermont Legislature and the Washington, D.C., City Council, Americans in the other 48 states are quietly stress-testing their legal defenses against the spread of legalized same-sex marriage.

Almost two years ago I visited southern California to watch the U.S. Border Patrol at work. The federal government was building a fence and, with help from the National Guard, federal agents were stepping up patrols and slowing the flow of illegal aliens across our southern border.

I kept hearing things like, "Life is busy. The modern media is teaching my kid that it's normal to have sex as a teen. The culture has my kids in their cross-hairs. I can't connect with my children. My daughter dresses like a street walker. My son is distant."

How do the American tea parties of today compare with the original Boston Tea Party? The scale is far different but the substance isn’t far off.
Bitterness over the dastardly tea tax led to the Boston Tea Party of 1773.

Today Jeff Jarvis is best known as the father of BuzzMachine.com, a smart, Internet-loving blog about the dramatic and often damaging affects the digital revolution and new technologies are having on "the old media."

Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected an appeal seeking a new trial for death-row inmate and former Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal, who was convicted in the 1981 shooting of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner.

There has been a lot of squawking from the right about Obama attacking the investor class of business; that his plans discourage investing by raising taxes on what the left like to call “The Rich.” It is not these folks that his plans financially demoralize. It is the Creators who his plans stifle. It is the Creators that will pull us out of this recession.

Like it or not, the United States of America is no longer the world's policeman. This was the message of Barack Obama's presidential journey to Britain, France, the Czech Republic, Turkey and Iraq this past week.

In less than three full months of the Obama presidency, we’ve seen some sweeping changes made to our nation’s foreign policy, and during this same brief period we’ve seen a series of new foreign threats and challenges emerge.